Article
Clear communication drives in-house success for corporate general counsel
The in-house legal function has worked hard to earn its seat at the table where strategic business decisions are being made. That has required learning a new business lingo, going on customer visits, and walking a mile in the shoes of their operational and go-to-market peers.
Some legal professionals are simply satisfying a curiosity, but many are making a strategic decision to take a broader view of their role. They believe they can serve the business better and help elevate the role of the corporate counsel. To wit, Legal Mosaic CEO Mark Cohen argues, “To better serve business and collaborate in its value creation, the legal function must become proficient in business language, processes, risk management, data analytics, agility, speed, talent acquisition and management, risks, competition, and customer service. This is a far cry from a legal remit to produce self-proclaimed ‘excellent legal work.’”
Technology integration with the business
This is a tall order for usually lean teams. And let’s not forget that they do still need to deliver “excellent legal work.” Cohen is certainly onto something, though. Legal departments must integrate with the problems and processes of business, rather than sitting separately as an in-house law firm or, worse, being seen as a bottleneck or obstacle.
Proper investment in technology can help in-house attorneys be better strategic partners, make better use of their time, put their work in an overall business context, and deliver the excellent legal work and advice the business needs.
For instance, Dynamic Tool Set is a premium add-on to top-selling legal know-how tool, Practical Law. It has a feature that helps you compare data sets across jurisdictions with a simple query, rather than compiling data manually. This includes trends in transactional and litigation agreements, as well as state- or country-specific regulations. Businesses often need comparison data like this to inform investment or other business decisions.
When the technology automatically creates data visualizations like graphs and charts, you can give clearer guidance on contract negotiations, more readily advise on multijurisdictional issues, and get a head start when you’re working with local counsel.
Visualizations help in-house attorneys connect with business partners more effectively
People learn and are moved by stories and images. Every data point has its unique set of stories, of course. Attorneys have been collecting these stories, trading them with colleagues, and repeating them to business partners for generations. New data visualization tools make it easy to show how their anecdotes and earned wisdom look from a more strategic vantage point, putting them into perspective against overall market practices and driving more effective strategy for the business.
The use of visualizations can help make the stories and advice more accessible to people who didn’t go to law school, building more trust and a stronger relationship between in-house attorneys and their business partners.
Adding greater business value is much easier when attorneys have tools that take the busy work out of finding the law, freeing them up to spend time advising business partners and working through the nuance of different situations. They are well served by tools that help them put legal realities into business context and communicate risks simply and clearly.
The new Practical Law Dynamic Tool Set helps you gain deeper insights, get better answers faster, and utilize data and information through charts and visualizations. Find out how.
Integrate your team into strategic business matters with clear communication tools and data you can trust from Practical Law Dynamic Tool Set